I'm not seeing that we knew anything. I'm seeing that a lot of work had been done to create a potential for success. Can you point out where this "knowing" is coming from in the linked paper?
In real life there is no certainty when faced with a new thing in nature. But there were many concurrent potentials for success - including traditional vaccines like coronavac. But it’s important to note that human trials for mRNA started in March, a mere two months after the genome was released. As we know now the antibody response to mRNA vaccines are rapid and robust. This information didn’t reach us immediately, but it reached public health decision makers world wide. Inactive vaccine trials started in April, a mere month later, and had good response if not as great as mRNA. Likewise monoclonal antibodies were approved in April as well, and pronation was proven and publicized in April, along with other treatments and techniques. So, as a decision maker, “flattening the curve” seems like a great strategy given you have rapid progress on multiple fronts. In 1959 absolutely zero of these were possible or probable. Monoclonal antibodies were perfected just 40 years ago, pronation wasn’t widely recognized as a possible treatment, and mRNA wasn’t even science fiction. The article proposes an absurd calculus from two completely different worlds as if they were somehow identical decision making criteria. It wasn’t, and while there was no “knowing” any one of the avenues would world, it was almost certain one would - especially with so much research behind the safety and efficacy of mRNA presented in my linked article and the remarkable and robust antibody response in the first humans in March.
This is an interesting read… one of the challenges of the revisionism in articles like the original link is they simply ignore all context and lie about any context they include (deaths per capita being more extreme in 1959 etc). Besides being viral outbreaks almost nothing of the context is similar. That’s why people say in the thread this is an anti science article - a huge amount of the decision making context was the state of science and how amazing it is in 2020 vs any other time in all of humanity.
